The Life of Harry Faz
by DotDashing
Summary: I didn't want to be a banker anymore. I needed to make my mark on this world. Animatronics were basically puppets that did exactly what they were programmed to do. They were no different than a man in a mascot suit. This is the story of how I changed all of that ... for the worse. Entry for FNAF short story contest.


This is my entry for the FNAF short story contest at /r/fivenightsatfreddys. (I exceeded the post count) Keep in mind that a tad bit of headcanon is sprinkled on this story to make it flow better. If you see something that doesn't match up with the lore, (ie. Springtrap in Fredbear's, scrambled timeline) it's probably on purpose.

 **Thanks to /u/BrotherGrim428 for proofreading and helping with my (admittedly scary) grammar!**

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You're all delusional. Your so-called peace and tranquility is fake. Just wait. It'll catch up to you. That rug you're swiping all of your problems under will soon be too full to maintain your fragile ignorance. That's what I always thought.

I've been told by the staff that this is NOT how you begin an autobiography. They told me to "begin with an introduction and a summary of who I am before going into more detailed content." Thanks, staff. I'm glad you're interested enough in my "insane ramblings" to help me organize them.

My name is Harry Faz, former CEO of Fazbear Entertainment, and I'm mentally insane. At least, that's what my papers say. I was admitted into this madhouse after nearly being killed by artifacts of my own legacy. Why did they turn me in for that? Because people aren't ready for the truth.

All the evidence is there, you know. Evidence that those robots have a mind of their own. But even as they look at the thing's history log and see all the places they weren't supposed to go to and things they weren't meant to do, they still pretend that there's some other explanation. These people don't want to accept the truth. And why would they? Why would they want to believe in haunted animatronics? No, they would much rather try to find an explanation that fits their beliefs. That's why I'm here. They need to lock up the blasphemer who would dare try to disrupt their way of life. I guess that makes me a prisoner of illusion, huh?

I digress, however. My philosophical inputs are not why I've decided to write. Answer yourself this, reader: why do you care about my story? If you want to laugh at the madman who thought killer robots were after him, go ahead. I'll laugh with you. If you're writing a research paper about my business, I hope you'll find what you need. I simply don't care about what people think of my sanity anymore.

However, if you're reading because you have the slightest feeling that what I say is true, then I beg you to continue reading. You're who I'm writing for. You deserve to know what these monsters have done.

I'll begin my tale by saying I was a prideful man, fresh out of college. I had a shiny new degree, and I was ready to get it dirty and officially kickstart my life. I formed a bank with a particular focus on helping clients all over the world develop their businesses and endorse their products. I was wealthy, successful, and relatively famous among my rival businesses. The only thing I lacked, however, was the only thing I wanted. I wasn't happy.

See, being a successful businessman doesn't mean much when you die without leaving your mark in the world. In fact, I was completely convinced that my "mark" was to set the bar for children's entertainment. I adopted this mindset at around 18 years of age. My niece was having a birthday party and asked me to be there. The place she was having it at, Showbiz Pizza, was in the same city as my college, so why not? I found myself paying more attention to the animatronic band than her party, though, as I was enamored by this new form of entertainment. To be honest, I had never seen anything quite like it. The "Rockafire Explosion" band members showed body language with such carefully timed movements, each one hand-programmed to give the look of a humanoid animal naturally interacting with their instruments. Even in my amazement, though, I couldn't help but notice how ... empty the characters felt.

It wasn't a machine trying to replicate a human, it was a machine making movements that it was instructed to do. The characteristics and gestures they made were pre-designed by the maker. It was all controlled by humans. How is that any different from a man in a mascot suit?

Long story short, that was the moment I realized how important it was for me to reinvent animatronic entertainment. I needed to make Freddy Fazbear's Pizza. A place where the entertainment wasn't just designed by a puppet master behind the curtain. A place where the reality of characters is limited only by a child's imagination. A place where fantasy and fun come to life.

And that's how I came to the decision of buying out the old Fredbear's Diner next to the laundromat. For the non-local readers, Fredbear's Diner was another animatronic band featuring a guitar-playing bunny named Bonnie and a singing bear named Freddy. They were pretty much the same deal as the others, nailed-down animatronics moving around in a pattern designed to sync with audio. They made very good test subjects for my engineers, at least. Every few days, they would show me a prototype of what they designed. Most of them were just designed for ease of programming, going against my goal. While frustrated, the engineers still tried and tried and tried again to make my dream come true, despite their protests that it wasn't possible. Most of our conversations boiled down to the _engineers_ showing off their new improvement, followed by a deadpan "no" from me. One even made a spring-lock mechanism so we could use the animatronics as a suit if needed. At this point the poor guy was ready to throw away all that hard work and quit, so I promised the engineer in question that I would allow the mechanism to be in the final model as long as my desires were met. Thankfully, this improved morale among all workers.

One year later, it was done. The dream was made reality. The robots were given pre-made shows and phrases to use, but were designed to use them at their own discretion. Before acting, they would take in their surroundings. They would use their microphones, cameras, and other sensors to observe the organic world around them and conceive a reaction based on the parameters we have given. In layman's terms, they think about what their character would actually do in that situation, given both their surroundings and designated character personality. I could hardly believe it. Together, we made an animatronic-no, a character-that listens, that sees, that acts, that ... thinks. All we needed to do was make some crappy pizzas and open our doors to the public. The popularity would bring us enough profit to ditch the old Fredbear designs and make better and more colorful characters than the monochrome ones we had.

I still fondly remember the first day of Freddy Fazbear's Pizza. It was literally the best day of my life.

At the time, the only employees working were me, and my head engineer, Scott. We were working at the register and prize corner, respectively, close enough to have a casual conversation without leaving our designated locations.

"So ..." I started, "you think they'll like it?"

Scott looked up from his prize counter and gave a confused look. "Are you kidding? Of course they will! They're interactive animatronics! Kids'll eat them up!"

His encouraging words did very little to ease my fears. I looked over at my creations. They were looking around the pizzeria, waiting for permission to start their show. Seeing their eyes scout the area like curious children filled me with pride.

Scott snapped me out of my thoughts. "Hey, the school bus is here." The local elementary school had taken a field trip to Freddy's for winning some sort of fundraising contest.

"Oh, wow, they're early!" I exclaimed. "Freddy! Bonnie! Showtime!"

The animatronics looked over at me to confirm that they were being talked to and began the opening of their show. The kids entered the pizzeria with sheer excitement on their faces. I stamped their hands, took their orders, and threw some store-bought pizzas in the ovens. I set the timer to the time stated on the boxes and watched the children from my counter.

The kids had taken their seats, every single one of them scrunched up to the stage, watching the singing animals with awe. Freddy looked at the kids as the song ended.

"Hyuck-hyuck, hey there, kids! It's me, Freddy! Welcome to Freddy Fazbear's Pizza! We-" Freddy cut himself off after hearing the screams of the children and waited for the noise to die down. "We have a great show for you today! Right, Bonnie?"

"That's right, Freddy! After our show, you'll be able to eat great pizza and check out our awesome arcade games! We hope you have fun today!"

I watched the children dance along to the songs, laugh at the jokes, and learn a few life lessons I put in between songs to fill in time. I watched the show as well, grinning like a doofus at my work. I would be lying if I said I didn't feel like a genius back then.

Around that time, the oven went off, alerting me of the completion of its duty. "I've got it, Harry," Scott said, as he blocked my path to the kitchen. "Just sit here and observe the good you've done." To this day, I still feel like I could never repay him for doing that.

"Alright, kids! That's our show! Thanks for being such a great audience!" Freddy exclaimed, "Let's have some fun!" I really wish everyone could've seen the look on the children's faces when the animatronics walked off the stage. To this day, it was the second most magical thing I've ever seen. The most magical? It happened in the same day, when Bonnie noticed one of the kids crying in front of one of the arcade machines.

"Hey, be happy!" Bonnie said, approaching the kid, "We want you to have a great time here!"

"I w-wanted to play Sit N' Survive, though," the child sniffled, "and I'm out of tokens!"

Bonnie did nothing but stare at the child, as if pondering on the solution. Eventually, the bunny left into the back room, leaving the child sobbing in front of the game.

I ran back there to get Bonnie out, but he had already came back before I got there. He returned to the child, holding some sort of small object in his hand. When the child looked over, Bonnie placed the object on the machine. My jaw dropped upon seeing what it was.

It was a token. He got a token from the back room.

The child's cries quickly turned into laughter and excitement. Bonnie stared at him and said nothing. After all, he was never programmed to do this. We never recorded any phrases for Bonnie to use when handing something to a child. He did this on his own accord. _He did this on his own accord!_

This is exactly what I wanted. I wanted the children to be able to bond with the characters. I wanted to make sure that, as far as the kid was concerned, the character was real and truly cared for others.

I mentioned this to Scott after we closed. He cried. Now, I would love to tell you that I cried with him and sympathized with his tears of joy, but I didn't. I laughed at him. He laughed with me, as a matter of fact. That's Scott for you, always looking on the bright side of things.

It was smooth sailing from then on. We were raking in endless amounts of cash, most of which Scott insisted we donated to charity. At this point, he was more like my partner than my engineer. Point being, we had more than enough to make our own animatronic characters. With our new technology, we could even increase processing time by at least half a second!

Our first decision for the design addressed something that literally everyone complained about: the current Freddy and Bonnie looked gross. They were this bright-looking yellow color, not matching the color scheme of their respective animal at all. We agreed to make Freddy brown and Bonnie purple. We also came up with ideas for two more animatronics: Foxy, a sly, quick-running pirate fox, and Chicky, a chicken with a sweet tooth for cupcakes. We decided to call her Chica later on, as the name was too good to pass up. Still, we wanted a five-person band, so we had to think of one more animatronic. However, despite the whole hour we spent just pondering, we couldn't come up with one and decided to try again tomorrow.

However, I didn't know tomorrow would be such a tragedy.

The day began as normal. The band finished their show and let the kids eat and play their games. The only difference was the appearance of one of my first customers ever. The kid Bonnie gave a token to came back to visit. I smiled and watched him walk up to Bonnie.

"Hey, Bonnie, remember me?" He shouted, grabbing Bonnie's attention.

"What can I do for you, buddy?" Bonnie replied back.

"I made a drawing of you as a thank you gift!" The kid pulled out a crude drawing of Bonnie from his pocket. "Remember when you gave me that token?"

"Sorry, kiddo, ol' Bonnie has a pretty bad memory, hehe!" This was Bonnie's cop-out response when asked to recall something. The kid looked genuinely hurt, ready to cry at any second.

Uh oh.

"B-But ... I thought we were best friends! Why don't you remember?"

"Sorry, kiddo, ol' Bonnie has a pretty bad memory, hehe!"

"Bonnie, stop it! You gave me a token so I could play Sit N' Survive!"

"Sorry, kiddo, ol'-"

"STOP SAYING THAT!"

Within a few seconds the drawing was ripped up and discarded, and the heartbroken boy started throwing a temper tantrum, kicking both Bonnie and the machines.

"Calm down, pal!" Bonnie exclaimed. "I don't want you to get kicked out of Freddy's!"

Bad only turned to worse as another child tried to walk over and hug Bonnie. The rampaging child decided to start kicking the other relentlessly. Bonnie heard the screams of pain and stared, using the same pondering look I witnessed on my first day.

Suddenly, Bonnie grabbed the kid's arm, pulling him away from the other.

The whole place went silent.

By the time I could even think about damage control, the angry child's mother forcefully yanked her kid with her and stormed up to me. "Did your robot just GRAB my child? What kind of business do you run?"

I retaliated, "Ma'am, Bonnie was just trying to calm d-"

"You don't need to explain it to me. I saw it. How could you let a robot hurt my child like that?"

"Mom, he didn't hurt m-"

"Quiet! You're lucky my child didn't get KILLED, sir!"

"Uh, ma'am?" Scott piped in. "It was a gentle pull to protect the other child. From what I saw, you yanked him a few seconds ago much harder than Bonnie did."

"Oh, so it's MY fault that your robot abused my child?"

"That's not what I-"

"I'm done hearing from you monsters! You'll be hearing from my lawyer!" The woman stormed out of the pizzeria, leaving everyone shocked. The party had pretty much halted entirely, leaving an uncomfortable silence lingering through Freddy's. We called the injured kid's mother and closed for the night shortly after he was picked up.

You can say a lot about this woman, but she certainly doesn't bluff. The actual court procedure was featured on countless news channels, "exploiting" the business's poor moral ethics. We managed to escape a guilty verdict, but at the price of infamy.

At this point, Freddy Fazbear's Pizza was synonymous with a child-themed death trap in the eyes of the media. Countless websites berated the animatronics, expressing their distaste on how far the animatronic technology had reached. Within a week, a petition to downgrade the animatronics to standard, pre-programmed protocol was made. I think the final tally of signatures was around 15,000.

I wish the story ended there. I really do.

"Hey, Harry?" Scott said, inviting himself into my office. "You okay?"

I said nothing. I just continued to lay my head on my desk and mourn over my legacy.

"It's not over, you know," he reminded me. "We still have the new animatronics to build. We'll use them to gain our rep back! So, you wanna talk about that fifth character?"

"Make it a puppet," I mutter.

"Huh?"

"You heard what they said," I explained, barely audible. "They don't want our animatronics. They want an animatronic that only does what it's been manipulated to do. They want a puppet, so we'll give them a puppet."

"What would it do ...?" Scott asked, clearly worried about my sanity.

I looked at him dead in the eyes. "It pops out and plays music when the room goes silent. That's it. Don't give it the ability to think. Just program it to pop out when the amplitude goes down to a certain level. Make sure it works exactly the same way as every other animatronic in the world does. We can't have other people seeing something different for once."

"Harry ... people can get used to change. Just give them time."

"Both of us know that isn't true, Scott."

"Well, still, a little faith doesn't hurt."

I didn't want to have this conversation. I only said one more thing as I left to go home:

"How can you have faith in a creature that lives to destroy it?"

By the time the designs were finished, the new animatronics were almost entirely designed by Scott and his fellow engineers. I wanted no part in it, after all. I only asked him to make the fifth animatronic the puppet. He refused at first, but quickly changed his mind when he realized that his job was on the line. Shortly after finishing it, he invited himself into my office yet again, looking rather panicked.

"Harry. We need to talk. There's something wrong with that puppet."

"Something wrong?" I said, half-interested.

"That thing ... gives me a weird vibe. There's something off about it."

"If I remember correctly, you were complaining about how scared you were of Bonnie, too."

"That's different. Bonnie gives me the creeps just because of how he looks. The puppet, on the other hand ... it has a look in its eyes, Harry. It's not the look of the fake aesthetic eyes we use anymore. They seem real now. It seems like it's ... thinking."

"I thought I told you to program it NOT to think."

"No, not the way of thinking we created for the animatronics. I'm talking about real, human thinking. Like it's plotting something."

"Scott, I think you're overworking yourself. Your engineers can do without you for a day. You just need to go home and clear your head, okay?"

"You're probably right ... Alright. Thanks, Harry. I'll be back tomorrow."

You wanna know what the funny part is? If I had listened to him, we might've saved lives. I can't exactly talk about what happened over the course of the next few years. Even while in an institution, I still have a legal obligation to keep my mouth shut. I can't risk this not getting published. However, I can't stop you from looking up certain keywords, like "The Missing Children Incident" or "The Bite of '87", and I definitely can't stop you from looking them up in that exact order. Just saying.

All I can tell you is that the negative reception eventually closed Freddy Fazbear's Pizza down. We tried re-opening it years later, but it didn't last very long before that one was shut down as well. Again, sorry for the vague explanations, but being a controversial figure kinda places you right in the crosshairs of the suits.

Long story short, we were left with very little funding and four broken-down animatronics. I really wanted to give up at this point. I just wanted to buy back my bank and forget I ever had this stupid idea. Unfortunately, the name of Harry Faz was tarnished. No matter who I asked or what I applied for, nobody would dare hire me in fear of sharing in my bad name. I only had one option. I located a pay phone and called Scott.

"Hello? H-Hello?" Scott, um, wasn't that great with phones.

"Scott, it's me. Can I ask you for one more favor? As a friend?"

I hear nothing but silence from the other end.

"What do you need?" He finally said.

"Could you ... repair the old animatronics?"

"Repair the ... Have you lost your mind?"

"Can't we just do what everyone wanted us to do and keep them on stage?"

"Harry, even if we combined our cash, we wouldn't have enough money to install a brand new AI."

"Can't you just modify the current AI?"

"To an extent. While I can't remove their behavior, we can keep them busy with shows all day so they can't move ... but I still can't command them at night. They just stop responding to input. If the kids start sneaking in again, they won't last very long."

"I'll take the night shift, then."

I heard a nearly inaudible gasp on the other end. "What?"

"It's either death by Freddy or death by starvation. I'll take the quicker death any day."

"Harry, listen to me. Those. Things. Can. Think."

"Scott, they're machines! You're just looking for an explanation for your fear of Bonnie."

"You won't believe me, huh?" A long silence followed. "I guess I'm taking the night shift, then."

"I can't let you do that, Scott. My life is over. Yours still has so much potential. They never found the training tapes. As far as the media is concerned, you're not affiliated with Freddy's."

"Harry, I've dealt with them before. You haven't. I know what they can do and how-"

"Scott, I just used my last quarter. While I don't agree with it, you can take the shift ... as long as you know what you're doing. Are you in or not?"

"... Yeah, I'm in. I'll take the night shift for a week. Use that time to find a replacement. I'll leave training tapes for him. Make sure y-"

Scott's voice cut off. I ran out of time.

We got to work a week later, getting the building, fixing the animatronics, and finding ways to budget power. Several times during production Scott asked me to give this up and live with his family. I told him the same thing each time: I had been leeching on his craftsmanship since the beginning, and I didn't want to die doing that. His wife and kids didn't deserve it. _He_ didn't deserve it.

Oh, and the replacement? A young boy named Mike Schmidt. He was very secretive about his past, but from what I understood, he had a bad history and couldn't get another job. He had no choice. Just like me. He would start after Scott finished his week.

Unfortunately, Scott never managed to do so.

I came in Friday morning at 10 PM (when Scott likes to come in) to see the animatronics playing a show for absolutely nobody, as usual. A singing robot is a non-murderous robot. I quickly snapped out of my thoughts and went back to the mission at hand. I wanted to wish Scott luck for his final night.

"One more night, Scott! Then you're home-free!" I shouted. No response?

"Scott?" I looked around the building for him before seeing Freddy in the corner of my eye. Just an endoskeleton ... without its suit ... Oh no.

Oh no.

Please, no!

I ran into the security office to see exactly what I feared.

Sitting in the seat was a Freddy suit, with Scott's eyes popped out and teeth trapped in its mouth. I fell to my knees in shock.

Scott was dead.

He died trying to help me.

I killed Scott.

I KILLED SCOTT!

Suddenly, my pride caught up to me. I realized what I had done. Scott had a family. A wife and two kids. He was supposed to have a good life. He could've applied for a job at a big-name company. Even so, he gave it all up to help his friend. His selfish, careless, greedy friend who couldn't let things be.

Because of me, his wife would never get to say "I love you" to him again.

Because of me, his children would grow up without a father.

Because of me, a great, kind, generous, thoughtful, amazing man took his last breath last night.

I didn't care about the money anymore. I didn't deserve to live, anyway.

I walked up to the animatronics with Scott's hammer. That was it. I was going to end these animatronics once and for all, I lifted my hammer to the naked Freddy, ready to swing, and ...

I saw something in the Endoskeleton's eyes. It wasn't like any emotion we programmed it to convey in its face.

It was fear. He was afraid. That's when I realized it: We always assumed that they accidentally killed people thinking they were endoskeletons without their suit, and they used a suit to fix the problem. But here I am, looking at Freddy without one, substituting his own suit as a substitute for the lack of spares in the new pizzeria. We were wrong. I checked backstage due to a gut feeling. There was an endoskeleton there, too. I recalled that look in Freddy's eyes. They were real. And they had been killing.

I heard beeping from the wall clock. 12 AM. How long was I sitting there just mourning over Scott? I quickly realized that there was nobody to keep the kids from sneaking in. I had to stay.

I heard an animatronic talking and stepping off the stage. I got into my hiding position backstage and listened closely to make sure the front door wasn't opened by some snooping kid. I still don't know why I wasn't scared. I guess when you have nothing to live for, death isn't that scary.

It's funny, actually, for me to end up there. The founder of Freddy's, stuck in hiding from his own creation. The businessman's greed caught up to him as he hid from the symbols of his own selfishness. The ultimate irony.

I looked at my watch. 3 AM. They still hadn't found me. I looked around for where I dropped the hammer. Before I could retrieve it, though, I remembered him. Mike. He needed this job. If I destroyed the animatronics, he would be out of a job and probably starve to death. I gave up my search with a sigh and got back into position. I wasn't going to ruin another person's life. If the animatronics found me, then they would just have to kill me. Better my life than his.

5 AM. So close. Just a little lo-

"Hyuck-hyuck, hey there, kids! It's me, Freddy! Welcome to Freddy Fazbear's Pizza!"

If I wasn't in such a cramped location, I probably would've jumped 6 feet in the air. He was a lot closer than I thought he was. From the sound of his voice, he was near the stage. I just hoped he wouldn't get any closer-

"Hyuck-hyuck, hey there, kids! It's-"

I gasped when I heard his voice so close to me. That cutoff meant one thing: he heard me. I could hear his footsteps growing louder and louder with each intolerable step. I jumped out of my hiding spot and slammed the door, hoping it would be enough.

Bang. Bang. Bang. The sound of that stupid bear slamming into my door was deafening in my mute fear.

"Hyuck-hyuck, hey there, kids! It's me, Freddy! Welcome to-Pizza!"

... Did I hear that right?

"Hyuck-hyu-hyu-yu-yu-yu"

He was ... stuck on that line.

"Welcome to Frefaz pi-pi-pi-" SLAM! The only barrier between me and my killer crumbled to the ground, revealing a goofy-looking Freddy with a dislocated jaw, most likely from ramming into the door so much. That was the issue. Freddy and the gang always stuttered whenever they couldn't get their audio to sync up with their movements. In that case, he couldn't move his mouth with his words.

"It's me, Fred-Fred-kids! It's-dy!"

I happened to take a glance at the other two animatronics on the stage. They hadn't moved yet? They were just ... staring. Unmoving. Completely still. Were they playing with their victim? Was I their entertainment?

My thoughtfulness got the better of me as Freddy lunged forward, all while saying that same stupid line. I knew it was over. I was going to die while being welcomed to my own pizzeria. I stood straight, patiently awaiting my demise.

But then, a miracle happened. He stopped on his tracks, stuttering on his saying yet again.

I immediately realized what this meant. Freddy would try to complete his current movements before moving on to other ones. If I could keep Freddy talking, he would essentially be locked in place, not being able to move until he finished talking.

"Hey there, big guy," I said, as if trying to calm a vicious animal.

"He-he-hey th-ds"

"Looks like you have a bit of a problem there, huh?"

"F-F-Freddy Fazbear's-F-F-F-F"

"You really like that phrase, huh? It was the first phrase you ever said to children, you know. Well, the first your ugly yellow counterpart said."

"Welcome to-"

"You killed my friend, you know." I felt my rage gradually increasing.

"F-F-F-Freddy-"

"I hate you so much. You're the reason I'm in this mess. I could've been a banker. I could've lived a happy, boring live."

"Hey, there-there-"

"But you didn't stop there, did you? Ruining my life wasn't enough for you." I started raising my voice. "You had to go and kill the only person that stuck by me. THE ONLY PERSON THAT GAVE THIS SELFISH LOSER THE RESPECT HE DIDN'T DESERVE!"

Freddy stared into my eyes, head slightly twitching.

"I hate you. I hate your look. I hate your programming. I hate your personality. I hate what you stand for. I hate your voice. GOD, I hate your voice."

"Hyuck-hyuck-"

"HYUCK ISN'T EVEN A WORD!" I shouted, punching the bear in the face. He retaliated by almost instantly wrapping his huge metal hands around my neck, lifting me off the ground.

"Go ahead," I choked, "t-take my life. You've already taken everything else."

"Hyuck-hyuck, hey there, kids! It's me, Fred-It's me, Freddy!"

I felt myself getting dizzy, ready to give in to death.

"It's me, Fre-e-e-It's me! It's me! It's me!"

His grip tightened every time he said that phrase. It's me. Pain. It's me. Pain. It's me. Pain. The words eventually became synonymous with pain in my mind. I prayed that the torment would soon end.

It's me.

 **It's me.**

 **IT'S ME.**

Within the last few seconds of my consciousness, I heard it. The alarm. 6 AM.

Freddy dropped me onto the floor and made his way back to the stage, leaving me choking and gasping for air. I was absolutely mortified. As soon as those paws found my neck, my lack of fear quickly transformed into an abundance of it. I ran outside, not being able to handle being near the animatronics anymore. I was simply too scared to think rationally. In my fear-induced panic, my first instinct was to tell the local police department.

So, that's how I ended up attempting to convince the sheriff that a robotic bear tried to strangle me to death. Yeah, smart idea, right? They thought I was a loon. Still, for some reason they decided to investigate. The sheriff came back to inform me that I was under arrest for the murder of-you guessed it-Scott.

I showed them the proof Scott had brought to my attention every time he tried to convince me of their sentience, but it was in vain. As far as society was concerned, I was just another crazy guy killing random people. I pleaded insanity, as my lawyer requested, and here I am, writing a story so others can point and laugh at how I thought I was targeted by a cartoony bear. I have no doubt in my mind that people are too stubborn to believe anything they don't feel like believing.

And the most stubborn one was me.

If I had listened to Scott every time he tried to convince me, we could've ended this before it was too late. But alas, I did just what I was taught to do: I laughed at his mention of paranormal activity and continued to pretend that humans knew everything. Even as the incidents happened, I continued in my quest to make my mark. In the end, though, I realized what kind of person I was. I didn't make Freddy's to take a step forward in technology. I made it so people would _recognize me_ as the man who took a step forward in technology. In the end, my mission ruined the lives of everyone around me. The real monster wasn't the people. It was me. I wish I could've realized that sooner...

Mike, if you're reading this, I want to tell you something. Until recently, I thought humanity was doomed to make the same mistakes over and over, eventually drowning in their ignorance. But please, don't follow my hypocritical reasoning. It may be true that nobody cares about us, but we can still care about them. They don't accept the truth because they can't handle the truth. We're merely sacrifices to keep mankind happy. You have a job now. A job to protect the world from these animatronics. The place will probably shut down within the week because of this scandal. Please, try your best to last until then. The nightmare is almost over. Don't let them take another life in their final week. I'm counting on you, kid. Good luck ...

* * *

Shedding a single tear, the security guard put his book down and activated his monitor. Harry's words resonated with his heart, his moral conscience, even, and gave him enough motivation to keep on. However, many questions were left unanswered to him. What were these incidents his former boss couldn't talk about? Why were the animatronics walking around at night in the first place? And that phrase ... "It's me!" What did that mean? If these things really are haunted, what could Freddy have meant by that? Those two words triggered a chill down his spine as he thought about what it feels like to be strangled to death hearing that phrase. Now wasn't the time to be scared, though. He had to be strong and calm to outsmart the animatronics. He assured himself that he would make it through the week and get his answers. He had to. Whatever this week would bring him, he was ready.

 **NIGHT 1**

 **12:00 AM**


End file.
